Sweden updates bank notes and adds new denomination

By Arthur L. Friedberg

Published: Oct 8, 2015, 9 AM

Sweden is getting new bank notes that feature artists and a diplomat. The series includes a new denomination.

Image courtesy of Sveriges Riksbank.

Four new bank notes, including a new denomination, entered circulation Oct. 1 in Sweden. The 200-krona note is new and three other notes are updated versions of existing denominations.

Image courtesy of Sveriges Riksbank.

Four new bank notes, including a new denomination, entered circulation Oct. 1 in Sweden. The new 200-krona note and updated 20-, 50-, and 1,000-krona issues are part of a general overhaul of the nation’s currency system in the works since 2008.

The designs have an even distribution of men and women. The updated 20-krona note features Astrid Lindgren, the author and screenwriter best known for the Pippi Longstocking children’s books. The updated 50-krona issue shows the author, artist, composer and singer Evert Taube. On the new 200-krona note is the legendary director, writer, and producer Ingmar Bergman. The 1,000-krona issue bears a portrait of Dag Hammarskjöld, diplomat, economist, author and U.N secretary-general, who died in a plane crash while on a peace mission in September 1961.

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In October 2016, an updated 100-krona note with the film actress Greta Garbo and an updated 500-krona note showing the dramatic soprano Birgit Nilsson will be introduced.

The back of each note to be issued in 2015 and 2016 has a natural and environmental motif that is related to the person on the face.

Requirements for portrayal on a note were that the subject had major cultural achievements, was active in the 20th century, was popular with the public and was well-known internationally.

The new series has a security ribbon on the four highest values, a color-shifitng image that varies based on the subject, watermarks, intaglio printing, see-through pictures, security threads, microprinting, ultraviolet images and fibers, and the Eurion rings. The 50- through 500-krona notes also bear tactile markings for the visually impaired along their edges.

October will also see the debut of updated 1- and 5-krona coins and reintroduction of a 2-krona coin.

A statement from Sveriges Riksbank, the central bank, says that after June 30, 2017, the current 100- and 500-krona notes and 1- and 5-krona coins will become invalid.